422. Беседа по освящении храма Пресвятой Богородицы, Взыскательницы погибших, в Тюремном замке пересыльных арестантов

(Said on September 2nd; printed in Moscow, Gubern. and Police. Ved. 1854). For the Son of man came to seek and save the lost (Matthew 18:11). Depicting the perfections and benefits of the Mother of God, the Church, among other things, says of Her that She is “the seeker of the lost.” That is: Her love for mankind is so great that She not only accepts those who come to ask for Her help and gives them help, but She Herself also seeks those who need help, in order not only to comfort the grieving, to strengthen the weak, to heal the sick, to prosper the unfortunate, but even to find, convert, and lead to salvation those who are apparently irretrievably lost. This experience can be indicated in Mary of Egypt. Shouldn’t she have been considered rejected and irretrievably lost when, mired in vice, she was not allowed into the church of God by an invisible force, although many sinners are allowed into it? But in these very moments of rejection, as soon as she gazed with the eye of prayer at the image of the Mother of God, the Mother of God gazed at her with the eye of mercy, and the church of God with His shrine opened for the rejected one, and her heart opened for repentance and acceptance of grace, and the lost one was saved, and with wonderful deeds of piety she erased in herself the traces of monstrous depravity. In unlimited love for mankind, the Mother of God imitates Her Only Begotten Son and God. Christ the Savior Himself announced that “the Son of man came to seek and save the lost.” Mercy created this church. Out of mercy, the idea was born to commemorate this church with the name of the Mother of God, “Recoverer of the Lost.” It was the intention to do, and it was done, that this church, in the name of its Patroness, and by its name, constantly says to those who enter it and those around it: no matter how unhappy you find yourself, do not give in to despondency; even if you consider yourself lost, do not give in to despair; There is also “recovery and salvation” for those who “perished.” But even for those who, perhaps, do not think or fear that they may be among the dead, it is worth the trouble to think about what “recovery of the dead” means. “The Son of Man has come to seek and save the lost.” Who is this dead man? Is this the same person? Without a doubt, not just one, but many. It is impossible to think that the Son of God became the Son of man for the salvation of only one person. How many were lost whom He came to save! And are there other people beyond these who have not perished, who do not require salvation from Him? To this the Apostle Peter says: “There is... another name under heaven given among men, by which it is fitting that we should be saved” (Acts 4:12). And the Apostle John “bears witness that the Father has sent the Son of the Savior to the world” (1 John 4:14). If the Apostles testify that every person can be saved only in the name of Jesus Christ; that God the Father sent Him to save the whole world; He Himself says that He came to save the “lost”: then shouldn’t we conclude that by the name “lost” we must understand every person, the whole world? That's right. The Prophet discovered, one might say, the law of destruction when he cried out to God: “all who separate themselves from You will perish” (Ps. 72:27). He didn’t just say: “they will perish,” in which one could think of only probable or distant destruction; but he said: “They will perish,” indicating imminent and inevitable death. In fact, if the Apostolic expression of man’s relationship to God is true, that we “in Him... live,... move and are” (Acts 17:28): then it is no less true that as man moves away from God, man is deprived of his characteristic life, activity, well-being, in a word, he perishes. But how can a person move away from the omnipresent God? Of course, not by place, but by mind, will, heart. A person moves away from God in his heart when he stops loving Him; moves away from God by will when he desires something contrary to the will of God; He moves away from God with his mind when he forgets him and is immersed in partial thoughts in creation. This is how the first ancestors of all people withdrew from God when they turned away from Him in mind and heart, and listened to slander, and surrendered to the deception of the enemy of God, when they retreated by their will from the will of God and violated the commandment of God. They fell into sin, and through sin into death and destruction. And since, therefore, the nature of the first people was deeply damaged, and already in this state of damage, offspring began from them, and Adam, as the sacred history says, and as it was natural, “gave birth to a son after his own kind, and in his own image” (Gen. 5:3), that is, a sinner gave birth to a sinner, a mortal to a mortal, perishing, or at least perishing to perishing: then as a result of this, we are all descendants Adam, from the womb we carry with us the seed of sin and the beginning of death and destruction, and who can boast that he has not increased and multiplied the seed of sin born of arbitrary sins? Therefore, Scripture says that we are outside the grace of Christ, “dead in sins,” and “by nature children of wrath” (Eph. 2:1, 3). Further, since God, at the creation of man, gave him “possession” (Gen. 1:26), possession of the creatures of the visible world, acting not by superficial external power, but by the internal power of the image of God in him: then the damage to the nature of man should have been reflected in the nature of the visible world; and as a result of this, the death and destruction that has penetrated into it breaks out through corruptive actions and destructive upheavals, until finally the present “earth ... and the works that are in it will be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10), and the present visible “heavens ... will perish” (Heb. 1:10-11). So here is the lost one, demanding from the mercy of God to be sought and saved: this is every person, the whole person, the whole human race, the whole world. There are people who do not see and do not recognize the sinful death and destruction that we are now talking about. They live for their own pleasure; and more often or less often, they catch, as it seems to them, moments of happiness. Isn't that enviable? On the contrary, it is very pathetic. Such people are like a person sleeping in a dungeon, who in a dream does not see himself in prison, but dreams of being free, or a person with fever, who in delirium does not feel sick, but imagines himself healthy, and who is all the more dangerously ill because he does not feel his illness. If you are not aware of your sinfulness, the death and destruction hidden in it, then you make yourself a stranger to the One who “came ... to seek and save the lost.” Awake, neglected sleeping soul; reject seductive dreams and ghosts of sensuality; with the light of God's law, light the lamp of your conscience, and you will see that sin has imprisoned you in spiritual darkness, beyond which is not far the prison of hell; and you will understand why someone who had never been in a material prison cried out to God: “Bring out my soul from prison to confess to Your name” (Ps. 142:8). Come, sin-sick soul, to the awareness of the danger of your illness; understand that the painful fire of sinful passions, which you allow to flare up in yourself, is the beginning of the fire of hell; and do not hesitate to ask for healing from the heavenly physician. A soul wounded by the sadness of sin and the fear of death and destruction following sin! Hasten through repentance and faith to seek from your side the One who alone can seek and save you who are lost. He's already come. The eyelids waited for Him and fed on the hope of His coming as the food of life. Finally, He has come and is not moving away, as long as we do not move away from Him and do not persist in our removal. The Only Begotten Son of God, without leaving the throne of His Divinity, descended secretly from heaven itself to earth; He put on human nature, as if in a stranger’s clothing, and was called the Son of man Jesus Christ; and not only wandered on earth, but extended his wandering even to hell, seeking lost humanity everywhere in order to save it. And what did He not do for this? Since man had withdrawn from God in his mind, the Son of God “came and gave us light and understanding, that we might know the true God, and that we might be in His true Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 5:20). Because man withdrew by will from the will and law of God: then the incarnate Son of God in his humanity fulfilled for us all the will of God and all the law of God, and gave us the motivation, example and strength to fulfill the will of God and the commandment of God. Because man has withdrawn in heart from the love of God: then our Savior gave us a “new”, or renewed the worn-out, “commandment of love” (John 13:34) and “he poured out the love of God into our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us” (Rom. 5:5). Since sinner man not only perished by himself, but was also condemned to death by the justice of God, He who came to save the lost took upon himself both our guilt and our death, and at the same time put to death our death with His Divine life, and gave the dried up root of heavenly life in us His blood, for the growth of heavenly life in us. Finally, by saving lost man, He wants to save the world that was lost through man: and we are “new... the heavens and the earth are new according to His promise; in them righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13). O “Good Shepherd” (John 10:11, 14), - the immeasurably good Divine Shepherd of spirits and souls! There are near You “nine ten... in the mountains” (Matthew 18:12) of heaven, - no, - there are thousands of thousands and thousands of them there, shepherded by You, led by Your voice, nourished by Your light. Isn't that enough? But You do not despise the poor verbal sheep that has withdrawn from You by self-will, wandering in the wilds of the earth, “and you go astray” (Matthew 18:12). Who will search the paths of Your mercy? We do not see, but we believe that You have now come mysteriously to this church, and this is all in order to seek the lost, to save the lost, to attract the verbal sheep to You with the sweet flurry of spiritual songs, to feed them with the word of life and the grace of the sacraments. You alone see who of those gathered visibly in Your fence is close to You inwardly, and who “in heart...is far away” (Matthew 15:8) from You, and wanders, and loves his own delusion. Be merciful to everyone. Take the lost from the abyss of destruction, find the lost, convert and attract those who are far away, accept and save those who turn to You and those who draw near, make the saved blessed, may glory be to You, the all-merciful One, with Your beginningless Father and with the Holy Spirit, forever. Amen. You might be interested in: